The Situation Room Photo

The instantly iconic photo of the Situation Room reminds me of Thomas Eakins’s masterpiece, The Gross Clinic.

As Rex Hammock points out, the intensity of the Situation Room photo has something to do with Hillary Clinton’s eyes, which make a stark contrast with the woman’s eyes we don’t see in The Gross Clinic. The faces of Gross and Obama make for another evocative comparison, though the bloody scalpel in Obama’s hand is only implied by context.